Psychiatric Discourse, Colonization and Social Representation of Insanity in the British Colony of Grenada, West Indies 1900-1950. (360G-Wellcome-080840_Z_06_Z)

The social history of madness in the British West Indies to date has not yet been examined. Very little scholarship has been undertaken about madness in the colonial context. Colonisation, colonial psychiatric medicine and colonial ideologies have shaped the dissemination of knowledge. West Indian society has therefore been constructed as a society devoid of any cultural past and defined as a dualistic society, African and European. In any analysis of insanity in the British West Indies it is critically important to understand on a broader basis the social, political and economic influences that shaped complex day-to-day interactions within the West Indies. Psychiatric medicine illuminates the overlapping of layers of attitudes, suffering and dehumanization of people under colonialism, a system in which race is a key factor for conflict. Under such a system psychiatry is a complex area to analyse and study. This complexity is a result of social, political, economic, medical and administrative factors that have determined rates of admission, of release and readmission, length of stay and diagnosis, etc. In Grenada specifically, many factors therefore needed to be considered in examining the psychiatric discourse, colonization and the social representation of insanity 1900 - 1950. This study will therefore be the first of its kind to research and analyse the social history of psychiatry in Grenada between 1900 - 1950. Psychiatry offers a new direction through which the interpretation of historical text and patient records in Grenada can be understood.